Sunday, May 15, 2016

This is What I Signed Up For

When I decided to stop working a little over 1.5 years ago, it wasn't because my youngest had turned 1 and needed me at home. It was because of my oldest. He was starting to get more involved with after school activities, needed more help with a growing pile of homework and I was beginning to resent having to miss his games for work meetings.

Well, this is what I signed up for. I quit my job so I could drive car pool; become more involved in school volunteering my time and lending my knowledge; making sure all homework got done in between games and practices every night; and keeping up with the piles upon piles of laundry that just seemed to multiply while trying to schedule any work or errand needing to get done in a few spare hours of free time that mostly happened at night.

I see more and more divide and conquer going on in our household because surely the girls don't want to sit through more than one game a day no matter what sport it is, and we need to be home for Sadie too. So we switch off most days/weekends. I usually take the soccer games and a few baseball while Tom sits through most of the never ending travel and little league baseball games (is it too late to switch him to lacrosse?!).

Just this past weekend, Austen and his travel baseball team had the opportunity to play at Miller Park in Milwaukee at the little league stadium. What a great opportunity for him and his teammates.

I had opportunities like these growing up. My parents made sure I had them. So now I'm paying that forward for my kids. Are they lucky? Yes. But I see parents just like me every day running their kids to a baseball game only to rush them to their soccer game right afterwards. Is it too much? For them - probably not. Austen for one thrives on being busy. For me - maybe. But this is what I signed up for. And, I'm grateful that I did. I know I will blink and he'll be graduating from high school. I can always work again, but I can't ever have these years back of being there for my kids in this way.

I know I am exactly where I should be. After all, this is what I signed up for.